SAP with HVR-1600?

[dennit]

I've got a channel that seems to record in spanish about 60% of the time, but never seems to have spanish on it when I watch it live. (maybe it's just luck?) As far as I can tell, it's not a spanish language channel. I've looked at program listings and they never mark programming on it as spanish, but do mark it as SAP some of the time. I think I'm recording the SAP second audio, but I can't be sure. The HVR-1600 has a setting in WinTV for SAP, so it can decode it. I can't find a setting for it in GBPVR. Is there one? How can I tell if it's turned on and recording SAP? I've searched here and in the config and in config.xml. Thanks for any info.

[dennit]

A follow up:

I spent some time trying to figure this out, but it's tricky. I can't find the channel broadcasting live in Spanish, but whenever I test record in English, it correctly records in English. The channel is Multiplex, from Encore and I have found the originator's web site where it lists many programs with an encircled "SAP" which seem to signal that its in an alternate language? (I'm trying to catch one of these SAP marked broadcasts live, but it's hard to test when the wife is watching a favorite show )

As far as I can tell, the channel randomly switches between English and Spanish. Perhaps English is on the second audio when SAP is marked. It's also odd that the MceEpg2XmlTv source data does not seem to signal any language change (no language or SAP info), nor does it show in zap2it website listings. It's not promoted as a non-English channel, so I'm unsure how anyone would use this channel unless they were bilingual and didn't care about the language. Comments from anyone doing anything with SAP or who might have info on MPLEX language switching would be appreciated.

[dennit]

Another follow up:

I've got a second channel behaving oddly with audio. It's a PBS (public broadcasting) HD QAM channel. I've got no audio on it, except during breaks. I receive audio on it just fine with the WinTV app. I also seem to hear audio on it during some breaks, presumably when the audio is encoded differently. I don't know if it is related to the SAP issue. I also heard very scratchy audio during one test. I've tried changing the MPEG2 Playback Audio Decoder and Renderer with no effect. Other channels are playing audio just fine.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[sub]

Do a scan again, then zip and attach the config.exe.log and I'll take a look at the channel description found during the scan.

[dennit]

Do a scan again, then zip and attach the config.exe.log and I'll take a look at the channel description found during the scan.

I'm scanning now. It will take a few mins, but here are the two lines for this channel from the old scan.cache - I'm mapped to the second one

T:86,24,1~P:17~V:1984~A:1985~PMT:48~PCR:1984~N:>24.1 WEDH HD* (000)
T:86,24,1~P:17~V:1984~A:1986~PMT:48~PCR:1984~N:>24.1 WEDH HD* (000(AC3))

[sub]

Thats not the info I wanted to see. Its in config.exe.log.

[dennit]

Thats not the info I wanted to see. Its in config.exe.log.

I know, I just thought it might prove useful. The scan is on 60 of 138 now - The channel of interest is on about 120 IIRC. It's on the high end. Is there any way for me to tell what audio decoder/renderer is in use by WinTv, since it works?

[dennit]

Here is the log.

I had a crash, so I trimmed qam.ini to 3 entries around this channel and rescanned. Interesting thing - I get sound when I choose the first entry of:
T:86,24,1~P:17~V:1984~A:1985~PMT:48~PCR:1984~N:>24 .1 WEDH HD* (000)

but not when I choose

T:86,24,1~P:17~V:1984~A:1986~PMT:48~PCR:1984~N:>24 .1 WEDH HD* (000(AC3))

which is my default.

Also, the scan happened to coincide with a break, so I may have been getting sound.

[sub]

<service>
<service_name>WEDH HD</service_name>
<TSID>0</TSID>
<service_ID>17</service_ID>
<service_type>0</service_type>
<pmt_PID>48</pmt_PID>
<pcr_PID>1984</pcr_PID>
<video_PID>1984</video_PID>
<major_channel_number>24</major_channel_number>
<minor_channel_number>1</minor_channel_number>
<audio_PID lang="000" audio_type="0">1985</audio_PID>
<audio_PID lang="000" audio_type="0" AC3="true">1986</audio_PID>
</service>

I dont have too much I can tell you other than it has two audio streams, one of which is an AC3 audio, the other is MPEG1 Layer 2. The broadcaster hasnt explicitly specified a language for either of those streams, and we also dont know if they are transmit full time audio on both. Its possible they only transmit audio full time on one, and the other is used periodically to carry alternative audio when its available. If thats the case, its possible you've mapped to the stream that isnt always carrying audio.

[dennit]

This could well be the answer to my SAP problem too! For many of my channels the scan found an (000(AC3)) and an (000) version of the same channel. I chose the (000(AC3)) in each case. This happened on the MPLEX channel. I've switched it to the (000) version and it won't surprise me if I start getting English! Here's hoping. I'll try to test tonight.